The much-talked-about five-Test series between India and England is set to begin on January 25 in Hyderabad and the mind games have begun from both sides. Also, England’s famous ‘bazball’ batting approach will be in the spotlight during the Test series.
England has achieved great success with this approach as they defeated New Zealand in a Test series at home, defeated India in the rescheduled fifth Test in 2022, and then beat Pakistan in Pakistan 3-0 in a Test series. They also drew the Ashes 2023 at home against Australia.
But even captain Ben Stokes has acknowledged that the real test of Bazball will be in India and Australia, against two of the best Test teams in the world today. Notably, England was the last team to defeat India in a Test series in India, back in 2012.
Along with Bazball, India’s star batter Virat Kohli will also be in focus as he is just 152 runs short of becoming just the fourth Indian batter to amass over 9000 runs in Test cricket, following in the footsteps of Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar, and Rahul Dravid.
Legend Sunil Gavaskar said India has ‘Viratball’ to counter England’s Bazball approach. In 28 Test matches, Kohli has scored 1991 runs at an average of 42.36 against England.
“Yeah, conversion means having more hundreds than fifties. With Kohli, he has a similar amount of hundreds and fifties, which means he has a good conversion rate. The way he's been batting, his movement looks good. With the form that he's in, we have Viratball to counter Bazball,” said Gavaskar on Star Sports.
Gavaskar also stated that he was eager to see how the aggressive approach of England's batters works against a quality Indian spin attack, comprising Ravindra Jadeja, R Ashwin, Akshar Patel, and Kuldeep Yadav.
India is currently the second-ranked Test side in the world while England occupies the third spot in the latest ICC Test rankings.
“England have adopted a new approach in Test cricket in the last 1-2 years. It's an aggressive approach where batters look to attack. They just want to play attacking cricket no matter the situation. It'll be interesting to see if this approach works against the spinners of India,” Gavaskar added.
Kohli with 5 Test hundreds against England, will also eye the record of most Test centuries against England by an Indian batter. The record is currently jointly held by Sachin Tendulkar and Sunil Gavaskar with 7 tons each.
